I hope people complain until they have to patch the game so anyone can join anyone.

RonJeremy4Pres

Me, a North American living in Japan with a North American console, can only play with NA region players - most of whom live in NA! This makes a lot of fucking sense.

SumDum_Guy

I thought Ps3 games could not be region locked.

mustang

These are lies, I don't admit, even for a second. Region locking is a marketing droid evil device. Not a tecnical one. All multiplayer games lets you browse all available servers, and order by ping. So you get the ones with good ping (often on your city, country or continent), but nothing stop you getting a server from other continente *if have good ping*. A region lock limit what you see, so some servers with good ping are hidden (a few ones).

Anyway, If these guys are soo incluned to do that, add a combo box "region to search", or a checkbox "limite my search to my area" or other crap. You don't need to "lock" stuff.

What are region locking for?
To seel a game in USA for 50$, and sell that game in Europe for 50€, the same bytes, different price. Is pure marketing evilness.

tei

Either they are hiding the real reason behind their decision or the development team on this project is not the brightest in the bunch. Many co-op/multiplayer games have dealt with this issue just fine. Also just because you region lock a game, doesn't mean you will get a better connection than if it wasn't. In fact, I often get smoother connections with Asian gamers than US gamers (and I live in D.C. atm).

They claim that this great new technology of theirs is the reason for this, but if this is REALLY the case, they shouldn't have tried a technology they didn't know how to fully work with. Also I noticed a lot of people pointing to SSBB, which is even more proof that region lock is pointless because if two people live in the same state even, they might have a laggy connection. Although I must say, even if there are problems with it, I'm glad online was included in SSBB rather than not. Now if Nintendo could only do something about having a unified account system instead of a long friend code for each game.

DeeBG

Ummm... I thought this was already addressed in this article from yesterday. The animations for the two players need to stay synced closer than is generally necessary for multiplayer, so the tolerance for lag is lower. It seemed pretty clear to me that it was an issue with this particular game, and not some policy shift on EA's part. I mean, lord knows I hate EA as much as anybody, but I don't need to pull reasons out of thin air to do it.

MechaTama31

@ShirtGuyDom: Cool then.

Ampillion, now with the hair stylings of TVs Frank

a bit of lag didn't stop my friend and i from finishing Gears of War on all 3 difficulties...

EA needs to find better developers or ask Epic on how to do multicontinental co-op play...

icepick314

@Ampillion, now with the hair stylings of TVs Frank: I'm not trying to hate on SSBB at all.

ShirtGuyDom

@ShirtGuyDom: Well, it's relevance is kinda iffy, I just said it because I'm just really tired of all the hating around here in general. Especially when we already had one news post about the subject.

Ampillion, now with the hair stylings of TVs Frank

"A lot of people are having trouble playing SSBB online."

Fix't.

Funny how people always want to look at things with blinders on, as if nothing else in the world can possibly be applied to their circumstances. I brought up the SSBB online issues because I felt they were relevant. Forgive me O Lord for I have offended thee. I'll try not to bring context and perspective to any issue ever again. And if you didn't notice, those last to comments were completely sarcastic and out of context, and aren't worth starting a flame war over.

As to your point about AOT, my thoughts exactly.

ShirtGuyDom

Wait, Doesnt the Lag only affect AOT because its running off of a Peer to Peer system, Unless EA switches completely to Peer2peer, than I dont think there making the Region lock on everyone.

MenoJazz

@Ampillion, now with the hair stylings of TVs Frank: Then again Ive gotten used to having an "idiot" for a partner in SP at times, so playing "solo" in MP isnt too big of a deal. ;D Ive already had to do that like 4 out of 5 times Ive played online so far.

But lag from the host would be major bad, since theres AI running around too and if you cant kill them you are in for a world of hurt at times. :x

Witzbold

@ShirtGuyDom: For true. Just flat out killing the option is not very fair to the player, especially in the long run (when the game's population dwindles).

onidavin

@ShirtGuyDom: Funny. I spent an hour or two today playing Brawl online. Myth busted! Now, this time, let's try to keep relevant to the topic here...

Honestly, I can see why you might want to region lock it, but why not give the players the option to anyway? Just give them warnings that 'Well X players are from another region, lag may become an issue during play, play anway?'. Yet to play the game as interesting as it might be to try, but something tells me that co-op is key.. and having a laggy partner might not help out.

Ampillion, now with the hair stylings of TVs Frank

@onidavin: I wouldn't call that a "policy," but rather a "decision." But I get what you're specifically saying.

It would seem like their reasoning for making multiplayer region-locked is ridiculous. After all, we can play all these other games online with anyone in the world. But none of those games have the complex co-op animations that occur between players in AOT.

So I can see how they would want to minimize lag, and I can see how region-locking the multiplayer would help with that. BUT. They should have just put in a filter to allow gamers to turn off cross-region multiplayer.

That way, they could say "Hey, playing with people across the Atlantic increases your chances of having a bad experience because of lag, so we're helping you out by giving you this filter" without making it look like their forcing some arbitrary restriction on you.

ShirtGuyDom

@awwyeadatsright: That and I went through the game multiple times with different weapons to unlock achievements.

Kinda like how I went through COD4 multiple times.

Im glad that the game didnt turn out to be a train wreck asides from this current fiasco.

I find MP highly amusing also when I can get into a game due to AI running around too trying to screw things up for the player.

Witzbold

@ShirtGuyDom: How is it not? Just because it's not an EA-side policy doesn't mean the decision to isolate multiplayer occurs in a vacuum, the developer decided to do so and it is a problematic issue for gamers. I don't mean policy as in, "this is how our company does it", I mean that it was something decided upon (not an error).

I was probably overly snippy over the SSBB bit, sorry. Though I'm playing the hell out of it myself, it gets old hearing about the online issues in articles that aren't related.

onidavin

@ShirtGuyDom:

Someones easily offended.

Morberis

@awwyeadatsright: Well, you can do multiplayer while split-screening. That's what's kept me and my brothers playing Gears of War for so long. But, like I said, I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know if it'll have the same longevity as GoW.

ShirtGuyDom

@Witzbold: I have to disagree. INHO CoD4 felt longer and more fulfilling. I guess you can't compare the two since CoD is near flawless...but, I dunno. I was just very upset to know it was over so soon.

awwyeadatsright

Cross-continent lag? What in the-?
I've played TF2 on the Xbox 360 countless times with some British friends. Even with my horrible connection and about a quarter of a hemisphere and an ocean seperating us, we get a better connection than I do from people in the same country.

Same with Halo 3 and Ace Combat 6. Don't give me any of this "Oh, it'll lag too much and we want to help you" tripe. Let me play with my foreign friends. I'll decide whether it's too laggy or not.

RPharazonius

Reminds me of Resistance where Insomniac set multiplayer server selection was set by console region.

Yay for blame the devloper.

cactaur

@ShirtGuyDom: Me and a buddy just finished campaign split screen co-op...and it just kinda...ended. Like...out of no where. Don't get me wrong, a fantastic game, a lot of fun stuff. Just wanted more for my money for once. And I'm not one to complain about game prices.

P.S. Upgrading the sawed off to the max is hilarious. The thing looks like a vacuum cleaner by the time youre finished with it.

awwyeadatsright

@onidavin: But this Army of Two thing isn't a problem of policy. Look at the article.

And I'm sure you can take your smug attitude somewhere relevant. Jeez.

ShirtGuyDom

@awwyeadatsright: No since Ive played even shorter games for the same price that were a lot worse than AOT.

The game didnt take any longer than it took me to beat COD4 so whats your point?

Witzbold

@ShirtGuyDom: Oh, we hate that too. We just think this was a ridiculous way to deal with lag. You can loathe on many levels, you know.

Erwin

@ShirtGuyDom: One is a problem with service. The other is a problem with policy. I'm sure you can complain about SSBB online issues somewhere relevant.

onidavin

@awwyeadatsright: The singleplayer? Meh, I'm having enough fun upgrading all my weapons. That should hold me over for a while. Plus I haven't even tried multiplayer yet.

ShirtGuyDom

I'm not sure of how much complaining there has/has not been for this issue yet but....did anyone else think it was ridiculously short? Like..."I feel ripped off" short?

awwyeadatsright

This is a major issue? Seriously? People can't play SSBB online at all and we're bitching about region-locked multiplayer for Army of Two?

ShirtGuyDom

Let the firings commence!

MisterSleep

And the finger pointing goes on.

Witzbold

Mr. Gorbachev, turn off this region lock!

Erwin

Woah, way to shaft your players.

Shocky